(Word Count: 1,426)
The next morning, Harry and Hermione had their early breakfast together as usual. This time, the great hall was empty except for them. The usual early risers were sleeping in today.
"Harry, what am I going to do? I can't read in the library anymore!" Hermione groaned despondently, face down on the table, arms outstretched across the table. He had to move his plate away, to avoid her hair getting dunked in maple syrup.
He poked the top of her head. "Don't worry, Hermione. The world hasn't ended just yet. Remember our secret study room?"
She sat up quickly, face bright in realization. "Oh yeah! Come on, let's go!"
"I can walk you up there, but I've got to talk to Dumbledore at the moment. I'll join you afterwards."
They made their way up to the seventh floor, where Hermione turned left, and Harry turned right.
It was only when he got to the gargoyle guarding the entrance that he realized that Dumbledore had never given him the password to enter.
"Licorice Wands," no dice. The password had changed. So he started listing all of the confectionaries he knew. "Ginger snaps, chocolate frogs, lemon tart, druebles, lemon meringue, lemon drops."
The gargoyle just looked at him as if he was stupid. Then sighed. "The headmaster bids you enter."
The stairs started turning upwards, so Harry hopped on.
Inside the office, Dumbledore was sitting at his desk. "Good morning, Harry."
Feeling particularly smug this morning, Harry replied, "What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled in amusement, and he smiled softly. "All of them at once, I suppose."
Harry grinned. "Then, good morning to you too, Professor."
"Harry, can you tell me about last night?"
Harry told him everything, explaining even how he knew the troll would be let loose, and how Hermione would be in danger, how he had tried to change it by warning them beforehand. How things still played out in much the same way.
Dumbledore frowned. "Harry. If you have a vision about a danger to Hogwarts and its students, I must insist you tell me beforehand. Even if you didn't see anybody getting hurt directly."
"Don't worry, professor, I didn't see anything else yet," at least, nothing he planned to let happen.
For the second year, Harry planned on stealing the diary before Ginny could even write in it. Third year was already dealt with, and fourth year, the only danger was the tournament. He planned to deal with Voldemort as soon as he was resurrected, so anything beyond that was irrelevant.
Dumbledore didn't look like he believed that. He just leaned back in his chair, dissatisfied. "Are you certain you don't wish to tell me? Look at what happened last night. You tried to change your vision, and things progressed the same way. It would be wiser to get help."
Harry shook his head. "The future isn't immutable. In my visions for my third year, Sirius was still in prison then, but broke out to try and find Peter Pettigrew, who was in disguise at the time as Ron's pet rat. The ministry thought he was after me, so they—in a show of complete lapse of thinking—stationed dementors around the castle. But Sirius is already free and Pettigrew is already captured. So there's no way for my visions for third year to come true then."
Harry froze as he said that. 'That wasn't a red flag, was it?'If there was anything he had learned from divination class, it was the concept of jinxes. Not jinxes in the sense of a spell category—charms, jinxes, hexes, and curses—but the idea that you can say something that tempts Fate.
Jinxes were real things for wizards. For the non-magic world too, but wizards are more aware of them. It was the idea that the universe, or Fate, just loved to prove people wrong.
No, his memories of third year weren't actual visions of the future. It was just memories of a movie… but Fate did often refer to events as 'canon,' so that didn't really reassure him.
"Ah, you may be able to change some things, yes, but the key is to look at the main details. Take the troll for example. The main points are: a troll is set loose, and Hermione is attacked. Both of these things you tried to change, but both still happened. It would be best for us to work together to change the little details for the best possible result, even if the main events still occur," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. "Especially when they concern the school."
Again, Harry shook his head. "Thank you for the offer, Professor, but most of the visions that I've had of my school years involve some plot of Voldemort's. I'm certain no one had died in them, at least, not until 6th year, but I'm planning on fully ending him by the end of my 4th year. If I fail, then I will reveal everything and we can plan things out. But until then, I'd like to try to handle things my way."
Dumbledore sighed, "very well then, Harry. I suppose you are entitled to a bit of youthful adventure, and making your own mistakes. Just remember that I'm here should you need anything."
"Of course, Professor."
The conversation didn't last much longer than that, and Harry soon made his way out to the Room of Requirement to meet up with Hermione.
The door opened and Harry found Hermione in the middle of a ring, facing off against what looked like a pillow golem of a troll. He came in just in time to see her get wacked by what looked like a bundle of pool noodles in the shape of a club, and she tumbled backwards across the mats. The pillow troll stayed where it was.
She laid there, catching her breath, when she spotted him coming in.
"Harry!" She scrambled to her feet, flushing red. "You're here! I was just… I wanted to get better at fighting. You know, applying what I learned."
Harry came closer to admire the troll recreation. "This was a great idea, Mione. But I'll have to correct you. You've always been great at applying what you've learned. You're one the best in our year at actually casting the spells we've learned."
"But I was completely useless during the troll attack."
"That's because you've never learned how to fight, so you didn't have anything to apply in practice. It's a completely different process, so there's no shame in not knowing what to do. I, on the other hand, have been learning how to duel—and fight— since I've been learning magic."
"Can you teach me?" Hermione asked.
"Of course."
Harry then spent that morning going over the idea of point-casting, meaning foregoing the use of wand movements and simply pointing the wand at the target, and silent casting. One of the misconceptions about these progressive steps was that once one masters casting a spell silently, that he would then be able to cast any spell silently.
That was wrong.
Harry had to practice casting each individual spell via point-casting, before progressing to practice each individual spell silently. This was because magic had to learn what you wanted. As it got used to certain incantations and movements, it became more comfortable with what you meant via your intent. It got used to a spell just as you did, so you had to be very familiar with a spell to even begin trying to reduce or remove wand movements and incantations. Of course, the more practice you got at casting silently/point casting, the easier it became to learn it with more spells. You didn't have to start from nothing each time.
This was why point casting was reserved for end-of-year 4th years, and silent casting was reserved for 6th years. Ignoring the point casting seen in the movies. The movies got everything wrong when it came to casting spells.
Still, this was the very first step when it came to dueling or fighting, since it was very difficult to get wand movements right in the middle of a fight.
So, together, Harry and Hermione picked out two spells that she was most comfortable with to get her started practicing point casting. That being two first year charms: Flipendo, and Diffindo.